True North
by kelseydelrey
Summary: No one saw it coming, and when it was gone no one even remembered it being there - the fleeting seconds in a young greaser's life where things look like they might be okay for a while. Then they aren't, and you remember who you are and where you come from and how you're never going to go anywhere because you're an east sider, and all you have are your brothers and yourself.
1. true north

It was dark and cold, but we were all hot under our skin. Ponyboy looked about to pass out, but everyone else around me was breathing hard and pounding pavement like the Devil was after us. Nobody yelled or whooped like they had flipping off the porch steps only a few hours ago, while I stood in the doorway and watched them go and promised that I'd stay put and finish my homework and then go home before my mum went crazy worrying about me.

Sodapop was in the lead. I was only behind him by a little bit, and beside me Two-Bit was taking a swig from the bottle, and half of it was spilling down his cheek and onto his shoulder it was so shaken up. He'd been drinking a lot more lately. He called it liquid courage, but I called it a crutch – not to his face though. To his face I told him that I knew and understood and love him always, because he's my big brother and sometimes he needs reassurance and a cigarette and somebody to lean on for a little bit.

Somehow Steve got there before any of us, and we all almost ran into him when he skidded to a stop – but it wasn't funny. Dallas was running at us from the other direction, slowing down, gasping through his mouth. We could all see the heater tucked into his waistband, the one he never loaded but kept anyway in case he needed to scare someone off. It was getting a lot rougher over here, sometimes a blade just wasn't enough if you had six or more Socs on you and nobody around to holler for.

The sirens were gaining ground. We could see their lights flashing, coming up over the hill, screeching to a stop. Dallas stopped too, underneath a streetlight that turned his white hair into a halo. He was beautiful, even with all the scars and the desperate pleading look in his eyes. His face was stoic. He looked tired.

Four uniformed officers drew their guns, and warned him to take his hand away from his jeans. To put his hands up, to get to his knees, to not do anything stupid but he was going to do something stupid anyway. Ponyboy was shaking where he stood, violently and frighteningly. I was shaking too but it was different.

No one saw it coming. One second Dallas had his hand on the butt of the pistol, and the next, Two-Bit had launched himself up onto the sidewalk, over the grass, pushed Dallas to the ground as the police fired. They thought he was going to pull his weapon.

I screamed, "Keith!" because you didn't call someone by their nickname when they were dying. You didn't yell out Two-Bit at your brother who was being jerked viciously around before crumpling in the pool of light that didn't feel like it was fending off the darkness anymore at all. You said Keith, because it was Keith Mathews who was dead, it was Keith Mathews who Dallas was standing over after dropping his gun in shock and confusion. The police had lowered their weapons, were radioing for an ambulance, but it was too late. It was Keith Mathews I would be burying; who had taught me to tie my shoes, to ride a bicycle, to not wear blue eyeshadow and to stay away from the Shepard family no matter how good they were in a rumble because they were bad news anytime else.

I tried to run forward but Steve grabbed my arm, pulled me back, hooked the other around my waist and almost lifted me off the ground to stop me from going. He kept saying there was nothing I could do, that we had to let the ambulance come, that I would get in trouble if I went near him. Ponyboy had pitched forward by now, and Darrel and Sodapop were kneeling down beside him desperately trying to flag someone down to help. But Steve just held me, and after a few minutes I stopped fighting.

Dallas was in handcuffs. I was in pieces.


	2. my head is full of ghosts

_Testing fate and cheating death,  
no one ever told me it was gonna be like this_

* * *

It was hard to keep quiet when her mother started yelling like that, but she did it. Lying on her back in the dark on the mattress that used to be her brother's, in nothing but an undershirt and cotton shorts, nightgown disregarded on the warped hardwood floor because it was too hot to be wearing much of anything at night in September. The screaming had been going on since fall though, since the man had come to live with them and had kicked out her big brother. It was nice, having the bed all to herself and not having to curl up on the couch every night, but it wasn't worth it. She would have slept on the floor if that's what it took to get him back and make the man leave.

"God damn it Diana," he shouted, and there was a slap, and her mother cried out again. The first time it had happened she'd called the police, but they hadn't done a thing, and her mother had gotten it twice as bad the next night and had to go to work with her eye all blacked. Then the man had come into her room to tuck her in and told her that if she ever pulled anything like that again, he'd make sure she couldn't sit down for a month. So now she just kept quiet, lying on her back with her eyes wide open, light from the moon playing across her face and her stomach, making the sweat glisten and sometimes she had to choke back tears and her chest shuddered, but mostly she was still.

"She needed new shoes," Diana sobbed, "for school. She can't go in those sneakers."

"You think we got the money for that?" His voice was loud and he had a terrible Southern twang, and every time he spoke he hit, once or twice or three times. Some were slaps and some sounded harder, like fists or backhands or maybe even a kick if her mother had sunk to the floor already.

She'd heard enough. He was yelling insults and profanities now, and in the dark she pulled off her underclothes and put on a proper bra – she'd only just started needing one – and a pair of panties she hadn't spent the last two hours sweating in. Then a tee shirt, a pair of denim shorts with a wide cuff, and the white tennis shoes Diana and the man were fighting about in the kitchen. She had nice clothes for school this year, skirts and blouses and a shiny black pair of Mary Janes they'd bought brand new at the department store yesterday morning, but she wasn't allowed to wear any of them when she was out playing. They were for school and church, when the man dragged them all there.

She didn't believe in God. She had no reason to.

Her bedroom window opened quietly, and she slithered through it onto the hardscrabble grass that ran up the side, and grew through the cracks in the driveway. Sometimes the man parked his car in the driveway, but mostly it was left at the bar when he walked home. He never drank and drove – he said only idiots did it, idiots and rednecks and he wasn't either.

Nobody would notice that she was gone. Nobody came and checked on her on the weekends, and it was Friday night. Diana had a big thing about education, because she hadn't gotten one herself and look at how she had ended up. She wanted her daughter to be able to get a good job and support herself and not need a man who slapped her around just to make ends meet. Not that the man brought much into the house anyway.

Down the street, through an alley, across the parking lot of a rowdy bar, but it was the fastest way to go. The air was thick and hot, even at midnight, and sound got all tangled up in it, stopping short and muffled. Her footsteps didn't echo, and neither did anyone else's as she passed them on the street, people much older than her with greased back hair or high-heeled shoes. Some kids wandered past too, girls like her with parents who didn't care either. Nobody cared on this side of town, not enough to do anything about it.

While she walked she dug an elastic out of her pocket, and used it to put her hair in a braid. Usually her hair was long and thick with California waves, but tonight it was just heavy and making the back of her neck sweat. In a week or two the temperature would drop overnight, and the red and gold leaves of autumn would appear, but that felt like a lifetime.

She didn't even look this time when she passed by the streetlamp – _that_ streetlamp. It used to be that she couldn't take her eyes off it, but the rust stains on the grass had washed away by now, and she couldn't smell the gun powder anymore, and besides a little hitch in her breath, a crack in her chest, she was fine. She was fine. She swore she was fine.

The living room lights were on when she took the steps – all three at once – up onto the rickety porch of the blue and white-trimmed house. It had probably been sweet and prim when it was first built, the colour of the summer sky, wood siding and a picket fence that had since been warped by rain and half sunk into the ground at all angles. It was a single storey, only a few houses had multiple and they were mostly double-family homes because nobody could afford one on their own.

Unlocked door – it always was. Bodies in the living room, a card game going on the coffee table and the radio blaring on the bookshelf. Nobody in the Curtis house went to bed early on a Friday, except maybe Darry when his Saturday shift got pushed up, but usually he worked nights on Saturday and Sunday so even he could stay out a little longer, finishing up dishes in the kitchen or leaning back in his armchair with the paper open or the late-night news on.

"Tori!" someone shouted, and she was swept up in a hug by someone who smelled like hair oil and motor grease. She hadn't been around for a while, not since early August when she and Ponyboy would study his old math workbook because she wasn't at all prepared for grade nine and he just wanted to help. She hadn't picked much up, but they'd had an alright time trying anyway. Sometimes Sodapop brought home milkshakes.

"Sodapop," she said, hugging him back, almost losing her balance when he dropped her back on the floor. She said hello to everyone – Steve, who was taking a pile of cigarettes from in front of Dallas, who was holding a losing hand of cards with his scarred arm; Ponyboy, sitting on the couch with his text book balanced on his knees; and Darry who only spared a glance because he was on his way to the kitchen to make sure there was enough food for breakfast.

Johnny wasn't around anymore. He'd gotten into a bad accident last fall. He was supposed to be in a wheelchair his whole life, but somebody had paid for him to go off to a special hospital in Boston, where he might be able to learn to walk again. She missed him – she'd gone to visit him a few months back and they'd played chess. He won. Then he passed out. He was a hero, nobody even remembered he was a greaser because he almost died helping a bunch of little farm kids. Probably it was one of their parents who paid. Ponyboy said he wouldn't be surprised if it had been some Soc parent, feeling guilty. Maybe.

They dealt her into the game, and Ponyboy handed her over a cigarette. He'd gotten her started last summer, when they spent every night sitting on the elementary school playground, smoking and drinking sodas and watching the stars. She'd had a day job washing dishes for two months; that's how they paid for the bottles and packs. In August she stopped the work, but she'd kept up the cancer sticks. Everyone in their neighbourhood smoked.

"Has anyone heard from Johnny?"

They all looked at each other nervously, except for Dallas, who said, "nope. Ain't been a call or a letter since he left."

He'd left the letter for all of them, it was the best he could do under the circumstances. The nurses wouldn't let them all in. "Has anyone been calling?"

"Of course we're calling," Sodapop said. He looked sorry. "There just ain't much we can do."

It was true. They'd done everything they knew how to, but nobody really knew anything about where they'd shipped him off to. Maybe he was just too busy, or too sick, or too tired to talk to anyone. The one time Tori had tried, all she got was an operator saying the clinic was closed and to try again on Monday. She didn't, but she left a note for someone else to. At the time she didn't have a home phone that worked – the man hadn't paid the bill again.

Tori threw her hand down. She already knew she'd lost. It was a good thing she didn't have anything real to bet, because she would have lost it all to Steve. He was the best poker player she knew, and he didn't even have to cheat the way Soda did. Not that anyone could blame him. He was as bad at cards as she was, but her socks weren't thick enough to hide aces in.

"I read somewhere," Dallas started, and Sodapop cut in loudly with a grin, "aw yeah, since when do you read?"

"Okay, so a broad told me," Dallas shrugged, "anyway, down at the drive in, she says someone told her of a place they send retards and cripples. They just lock 'em all up together and if they die, they die. Nobody's problem anymore."

Ponyboy went white, and her stomach turned, and Steve looked about ready to lunge across the table and smack him one. She wanted to too, but Dallas would probably sock her back, and she wasn't looking to get her nose broken tonight. She'd gone thing long with not snapping anything but her pinky finger once, and she wanted to keep it that way. Maybe some of the other guys knew that you didn't beat on a guy's little sister, but Dallas didn't care anymore. Not since Johnny left.

"I should get home," Tori said, even though she'd originally intended to crash on the Curtis' couch tonight. She didn't like going home when her mother and the man were at it like that, because it could go on all night, and then her mother would spend the whole morning crying in the bathroom no matter how bad anyone else had to pee.

Dallas put his cards down. "I'm goin' that way anyway."

"Are you sure?" Suddenly Darry had appeared again, wiping his hands off on a dish towel. There were water drops all around the hem of his white tee shirt; he'd done the dishes, and splashed himself pretty bad. "It's real late."

"No, it's okay." She didn't want Dallas walking with her home either, but when he set his mind to something he saw it through no matter what. In a way she could tell that he felt bad for what had happened. He was guilty. It wasn't every day that a guy had his buddy sacrifice his life, then you had to see his kid sister around all the time.

Sodapop smiled and said, "Come back tomorrow okay? We're gonna cook hot dogs on the fire out back."

A couple weeks ago Steve had brought around an old tire rim from the gasoline station and they had loaded it up with fire wood to have campouts in the backyard. It was really neat, and she hadn't gotten to see it in action yet.

She promised she'd be back, then left behind Dallas, who was lighting up another cigarette. She dropped hers on the pavement outside and stubbed it out with the toe of her sneaker. She only ever had maybe three or four a night, not like Ponyboy who was almost always on fire, or Dallas, who had to light up whenever he felt like looking tough or cool or his hands started to shake a little again.

"I saw Curly uptown the other day," Dallas said, looking up at the stars. He wasn't really seeing them though, not like she did. She could even pick out constellations if it was a clear enough night. They taught that in grade five, and she'd never forgotten, because it was the only cool thing they really ever talked about. The rest of it was all mathematics and grammar.

"What'd he say?" She didn't know any of the Shepard family very well, other than their names and what they looked like, and that Curly was a year older than Pony and Angela was supposed to be in her grade but had been held back once. When Two-Bit had told her to stay away from them, she listened, even though he and all their friends looked them up sometimes. They fought with the Shepards in the rumble last fall, against the Socs. Not long after there was a falling out, but she didn't know much about that. She'd been a little caught up then. Lost in her head. She hadn't eaten much at all for months, which was why you could see her ribs now, and she'd had to go buy a whole bunch of new second-hand pants and shorts with money mother had snuck her.

"They're getting' restless, he said. Itchin' for a fight, probably with us."

"Over what?"

Now Dallas grinned, reckless and dangerous. She hated that grin. "Can't tell ya, kid. But you gotta start watching your back. No more of this walkin' around alone in the middle of the night shit, ya hear?"

"Sure Dally," she said, but she didn't mean it. Hell would freeze over before she'd take an order from Dallas Winston.

He walked her all the way up to her window, and even gave her a boost up. "Shit, you weigh anything?" And when she leaned out to say goodbye, he put his hands on the sides of her face and kissed her – hard and desperate. For a second she let him, then she pulled away, far enough away that he had to drop his hands and step back, looking almost pissed off at her.

"Not anymore, Dallas," she said, quiet but serious. "I told you. Not anymore."

"Sure," he shrugged, lighting up another cigarette. Then he turned and walked off, the cocky swagger still in his hips, and Tori closed her window and peeled off her clothes and pretended that she couldn't hear her mother and the man having sex in the bedroom right beside. She'd never done _that_ with Dallas before; always stopped him before he got underneath her shirt or to the button on her pants. Maybe that was why he didn't care. Maybe that was why he could just walk away like it was no big deal.

She was no big deal, she thought, sliding into bed. Really, in the grand scheme of things.


	3. wrong way kids

Bob Sheldon was dead. His buddy Randy Adderson had taken off, and his girl Cherry was a mess. She took two weeks off school just to cry at home about it all. There were articles in the newspaper about her, and about her friend Marcia too who had been going with Randy before he ran away from home. There were pleas from his parents that he call them and tell them where he was. They showed Bob's football record, and his grades at school and talked about what a promising future he'd had.

They gave funny glances now, and threw paper balls in class and drove by in their cars to yell, but nobody got jumped anymore, at least not any Socs-on-greasers. She and Ponyboy still went to the drug store at lunch because greasers didn't eat in the cafeteria, and weren't really allowed to now even if they wanted too – Steve used to go too, and Two-Bit, but Steve had graduated and then well … you know the score. The west side seemed like it had settled in the wake of the loss of so many of their elite set.

The east side though, it was just ramping up.

"Hey," Ponyboy said to her on Monday morning when they were walking up the sidewalk with the early morning sun peeking through the buildings and the trees, laying shadows on their faces and the pavement under their shoes, "it ain't as bad as Dally said, okay? There ain't gonna be a big gang war."

"Sure sounded that way," she replied, shifting her book bag on her shoulder. Her skirt was short. Mainly it was because the weather was still so warm that she was scared she was gonna sweat right through her blouse – even though she was going without shirtsleeves, which would give any upstanding Soc a detention but would just garner her dirty looks by the faculty, which she was used to anyway – but her mother had said that this was the way you got a cute boy's attention. Mother was always flip-flopping back and forth like this, demanding Tori get an education so she didn't have to rely on a man one second, then the next putting curlers in her hair so she would look cute if anyone was watching.

Since Keith died, she'd been a mess. She couldn't make up her mind. Tori thought – but she didn't tell anyone – that her mother was going insane. Barely holding onto her job at the diner, giving in more and more to the man, and in the last couple months Tori began to notice her mother pulling strands of hair out when she was stressed, or busy, or about to cry.

Pony lit a cigarette. "Dally just misses New York. Everyone was fighting all the time there. He wants it to be like that here too."

"But what if the Shepards really do want our heads?" she asked. "What are they even mad about?"

At this, Ponyboy blushed, and shifted his eyes. "Aw, just … some friends playing tricks on Angela Shepard, that's all. They cut her hair real short a couple weeks ago and all that."

But from the way he wouldn't look in her eyes all the rest of the walk, Tori felt like that had almost nothing to do with what had got under Tim Shepard's skin. The girls in her class said he was insane, but Tori didn't know if she believed them or not. He'd been running this gang since he was a kid, and they were one of the most organized ones she'd ever seen. He had to have something working in his head to accomplish that, and that meant that they weren't going to go insane over a couple mean tricks to his little sister.

When they got to the middle school, they waved goodbye. "See you at lunch?" Tori confirmed.

"Yep."

Technically you weren't supposed to go off school grounds at lunch when you were in middle school – that was a perk of high school that she didn't have yet. But the lunch monitors were so busy looking after the cafeteria, and the kids whose parents gave donations to the school, that they never even thought to notice the ten or twenty little greasers sneaking off to bum smokes and hang out with their brothers and sisters and friends from the high school just four blocks away.

In class, Tori sat with Becca McCartney, Alice Warner, and Jessie Dixon. She had been every day since Kindergarten, and probably would every day after as well, until they all graduated and went off to college or to get jobs or get married right away. Once – what felt like a long time ago – she'd thought about marrying Dallas Winston right out of high school. But that was stupid, and she didn't think like that anymore. You didn't _marry_ Dallas Winston, you just stuck around until he got bored or you got smart.

She liked to think she got smart, but probably Dally got bored. What was the point of having a girl if you had to hide her all the time? But if Darry knew, he would have pounded the living hell out of him, no matter who said that who was stronger or scarier or more likely to beat the other.

"Look," Jessie whispered during math, pointing over towards the back of the room. Angela Shepard – who should have been a grade up and in high school already but had failed a few too many classes – was sitting tall and proud. But the thick, raven curls that usually spilled all the way down to the middle of her back were gone, replaced instead by a pixie-cut like no one had ever seen before outside of fashion magazines.

"Jesus…" Becca gasped, and Tori and Alice giggled. She really did still look perfect and picturesque with her hair cut, but the look on her face let everyone know that she hadn't done this on purpose, no matter how she tried to play it off.

"Ponyboy Curtis told me that a couple of his friends from school did it," Tori supplied. "And that's why her brother's all riled up."

"Aw, that ain't true," Alice said. "My brother said that they're mad 'cause of someone stabbing one of his boys dead."

"Your brother is a hippie, he don't know shit," Jessie said, shoving Alice's shoulder. They all laughed then, and Mrs Barclay cleared her throat impatiently and asked, "Am I interrupting something, ladies?"

They all spun around in their desks and sat up straight as boards. "No, Mrs Barclay."

At lunchtime, Tori left her friends underneath the bleachers and skipped off to the drug store. It was a longer walk from the middle school than the high school to get there, but her after-lunch class was just study hall, and you were supposed to get demerits for being late to any class, but Mr Cardinal was a half-Native American who was given the position as study hall teacher during an affirmative action campaign by the mayor, and he didn't give two shits either way whether you even showed up or not.

Clouds had moved in since the morning. It was beginning to feel like fall all of a sudden, making goosebumps rise on her legs and arms and the back of her neck. The air was still thick and warm, but all the light and heat had gone from the day. That was what happened in Tulsa though, it was burning hot up until school, and then it dropped tangibly within an afternoon. She was beginning to wish she'd brought a jacket to school today, or at least worn sleeves.

She almost decided to run home and change when she turned the corner and saw Ponyboy, outside the store with a cigarette and a bottle of Pepsi, talking like old friends with Curly Shepard. At first glance she'd thought he was Tim, but then their differences became obviously – Curly had a straight nose, no scars on his face, and he was a couple inches shorter too. But other than that, he was a little carbon copy of his brother, with greased black hair and eyes the colour of the sky at midnight.

He smiled at something Pony said, and she'd never seen a more off-putting smile in her life, not even on Dallas Winston. And she thought _Dally_ was scary.

She didn't have a chance to either buck up her courage or turn around and run – Ponyboy looked around then waved her over. He even had a cigarette out for her already, and this time she would take it. She would need it to steady her hand.

"Hey," he said when she got near, and struck a match for her. "You know Curly, right?"

"I know who he is," she replied, taking a small drag. She never filled her lungs with them, just took enough to feel it. Her cigarettes lasted for ages; usually she ended up saving them half-smoked in her pocket or book bag for later because she didn't want to waste them. Once she'd seen a hobo come along and scoop up all the butts underneath her window. He was black, and scared her something awful.

"This is Tori Mathews," Ponyboy introduced politely. He was always so polite. It was kind of weird for a boy from this part of town, but that's why he was her best friend.

Curly looked her up and down, grinned, then held out his hand. She took it and shook but it gave her chills. She didn't like his touch. His hands were too smooth for the dirt under his fingernails and the callouses on his hands. All the boys had them, from knives and hard labour.

"Not often girls like you come 'round the east side," he said with a wink, and she quickly pulled her hand back.

"I live here."

Ponyboy looked between the two a little nervously. "We ought to go in and get lunch," he said. "See you around Curly."

"Yeah, maybe," Curly said. He was still wearing that awful grin, but he loped off like a little alley cat.

Tori watched him go. He walked arrogant. Fleetingly she hoped he would get hit by a bus crossing the street, but when he didn't she followed Ponyboy into the drug store for candy bars and soda. "I thought," she said conversationally, "that you and the Shepard boys weren't on terms."

"Curly's not really much into it," Ponyboy replied, just as nonchalantly. "He and Tim don't get along well. He's good for fights and threats and jumping kids, but not much else."

She believed it. He was creepy, and probably stupid. "Does he go to school with you?"

"Nope. Dropped out."

Figured.

After they sat on the sidewalk and ate, Tori stood up and smoothed out her skirt. "Better get back. I'll miss half the class by the time I get there."

"Buck's havin' a party tonight," Ponyboy said. He'd started going to those, since Johnny left. Darry frowned upon it but he didn't stop him, even if it was a school night. Since giving him a longer rope, Darry was discovering that Pony really could take care of himself. He'd yet to get hurt or miss school or even let his grades drop below a low A. "He swore up and down there wouldn't be anyone from Shepard's gang."

"Maybe I'll go." Buck didn't love having kids around, especially middle schoolers, but they paid for their beers and usually didn't break anything so he just stuck to scowling. "If I can sneak out."


	4. where the fun is

_Hi Johnny,_

_ They haven't let us call you since you've been gone, but I got an address so maybe they let you have mail. We haven't been ignoring you on purpose or nothing and I bet you're just real busy with getting better. _

_ When they said we couldn't say goodbye to you Dallas took it pretty hard. We didn't see him for a few hours then all of a sudden we were running to meet him and he was running from the cops and it was all a big mess. There were guns involved, but he's okay. He thought you died and they were just lying to us or something. He wasn't really right in the head last year. He probably still should have been in the hospital too. _

_ We're all doing okay. Ponyboy made it back onto the track team and I'm in yearbook club this year. It's a lot of socs but they treat me okay. Steve said they won't once we get into high school but at least they're not jumping us too much anymore. Most of the fights are our own now. Tim Shepard is pissed off for some reason, no one will tell me but it sounds like someone killed someone and now there's gonna be a big war. It feels like we're just waiting for the bomb to go off then it's every man and every gang for himself over here. _

_ Anyway, Ponyboy telephoned to say he's on his way over. We're going to a party at Buck's. He's letting kids there now – isn't that wild? _

_ We all love you and I hope you get this and can write back. We miss you something awful. When are you coming home?_

_ Love,_

_ Victoria Mathews_

She folded the letter, slipped it into the envelope, sealed it. Tomorrow she would buy a stamp and mail it and hope that it got to him because nothing else had been and maybe he was scared without hearing from them. She knew that she would be, in his position.

It was cooler tonight. Cool enough that she slipped a cotton sweater on overtop of her blouse. Mother wasn't even home tonight; she'd gone to the bar with the man, who didn't let her drink but made her get all dolled up and go with because she looked good on his arm, and other women always wanted a taken man. Steve had drawn ladies in like flies to honey when he and Evie were together, but she was long gone now. She was in college. Nobody believed it until she left.

It was Ponyboy and Dallas who showed up at her door. They were both just in blue jeans and t-shirts, but Dallas had on his best pair of boots – real motorcycle ones, shiny black and intimidating that he stole from a department store in May.

"That's real cute," he teased, flicking at the hem of her skirt. It was black with floral print, and short, and she had her white blouse tucked into it and in the mirror it had looked good but now that Dallas was looking at it, she was dying for a pair of shorts again. She felt like she was just playing dress-up, but Ponyboy said, "Aw, leave her alone. It looks real good, Tori," and that, at least, got her out the door with them.

She'd left her hair out, thick, waving down to the middle of her back like a chili-chocolate waterfall, and sneaked her mother's good mascara and bright red lipstick. Red was the colour this year, but it was expensive at department stores. The light wind danced around her body, and if she closed her eyes she could almost imagine she was walking through a forest all on her own, like the princesses from the Disney cartoons, beautiful and graceful with a handsome prince looking for her somewhere far off.

But then Dallas would nudge her shoulder, or Ponyboy would ask a question, and she would have to open her eyes and watch out for the broken glass on the cracked sidewalk because it could poke through the rubber on the bottom of her sneakers and cut her foot, and no clinics were open this late and none of them could afford to go to the emergency room.

When they finally made it to Buck's, it was clear he'd been lying through his teeth. The place was crawling with gangs, with Shepards and Tigers and off in the corner Sodapop and Steve were getting rowdy with a couple other guys who didn't really gravitate one way or another, just friends who stuck together. Nobody was fighting yet though, so Dallas shrugged and said, "I'm stickin' around. You kids do what you want." Then he disappeared into the crowd.

Ponyboy and Tori looked at each other, shrugged, and shut the door behind them. Buck played bad music, but he had built his own bar in the living room of his house so it wasn't all bad.

Easily she could see that she was one of the youngest there. There were a couple girls from the other ninth grade class in middle school, but they were all older, members and sisters and girlfriends of Tiber Street Tigers – who were smart guys but dumb broads – or kids from Brumley, who were mostly all dumb. She'd gone to a couple dances in grade seven with a Brumley boy, and decided that she certainly should have heeded Two-Bit's warning about him, because his brother was real sharp but he was stupid as anything.

She hadn't done much dating after that up until Dallas – if he even counted as a date.

Ponyboy led the way up to the bar, and came away with two bottles – one for him, one for her. You didn't pay at Buck's unless he didn't like you or he didn't like your brother, or you broke something that he was going to have to fix. He made pretty good money in rodeos, and spent it all on drinks, and people came by and helped him drink them and he liked the company because nobody was really Buck Merrill's friend and none of the girls were really into him since he got his front teeth knocked out.

She took a sip. It was beer and it tasted awful, and she wasn't much for drinking anyway, but you didn't go to a party and not have at least one. Everyone had a bottle or a cup of something. Standing against the wall with Ponyboy at her side, they scanned the whole room, one side to the other slowly. It was crazy loud with country music and people yelling and laughing, and someone had knocked a light bulb out so the whole place was hardly lit, but it felt good. No moonlight could wiggle through the grime-caked windows, and it was hot and humid and she could smell sweat and dust and sweet liquor, and whenever somebody brushed against her to get to the washroom she jumped, her skin goosebumped even in the heat.

Ponyboy leaned in to yell in her ear after a few minutes of people-watching. All she caught was "cigarette" but then he started walking towards the door so she followed. She could use a smoke to calm her nerves.

Outside it was much quieter. With the door shut the dirty walls and windows acted like insulation, and all they could hear was a dull droning roar. It was far more comforting outside, and the smoke filled her lungs and her eyes were full of the stars shining brightly above them. Buck lived on a few acres by himself and his front porch light had been shot out; the glass was still littered on the stairs.

"It isn't as great in there as everyone makes it sound," she admitted. She'd been expecting something big and great and special, like in the novels she read in the public library that her mother said were for girls much older than herself.

"It's not so bad," Ponyboy said. "You just gotta be in the right mood."

"Or in the right bottle," she grinned.

Ponyboy was going to retort – and by the look on his face it was going to be a good one – but the door bursting open behind them stopped him up short. They jumped back, off the front walk, onto the overgrown lawn as a whole crowd of people came tumbling out, led by an already bloody and bruised Tim Shepard with his hands on an even worse looking Dallas Winston. Behind them people cheered and screamed and raised their drinks like it was some sort of spectacle, but Ponyboy and Tori knew better. Dallas and Tim were supposed to be friends, and they'd seen that cold hatred in Dally's eyes before. This wasn't a game. This was war.

"Dallas!" Tori screamed, but nobody heard her. It was like Keith all over again, except instead of her brother getting shot down, it was the first man she'd mistakenly thought she loved getting beat to near death. He didn't look like he could hold on much longer – he'd had too much to drink in too short a time. Usually Dallas was better than that.

Tim was shouting as he punched at any inch of Dallas' face and neck and torso he could reach, with Dallas' hands around Tim's neck.

"I'll fuckin' kill you!" Tim was saying, his words muffled by blood and a broken back tooth. "You rotten bastard, that was my cousin you killed!"

Tori gasped audibly. "He _killed_ someone?" she demanded of Ponyboy, but her eyes never left the fighting boys. There was a sort of horrifying beauty about the whole thing; it was mesmerizing her. She hated this, hated the blood and the pain and the look in Dallas' eyes, but for once she just couldn't look away.

Ponyboy shrugged nervously – he was looking at her. "I swore I wouldn't say." He was apologizing, but she didn't blame him. If Dallas told her he killed a man then made her swear not to tell, she'd keep her trap shut good too.

**x x x x**

"Shit," Tori breathed, dabbing at Dallas' head with a damp cloth. "I think this needs stiches."

"So stitch it up," he demanded, but his heart wasn't in it. He was tired. "I ain't goin' to no emergency room."

"I haven't got stitches," she said, but that wasn't true. Her grandmother had been a nurse, and her mother had a whole medical kit stashed away in the kitchen. She knew a whole lot about wounds and bruises and stitches and bandages for a bar maid, and Tori knew some of it too – at least in theory.

He followed her from the bathroom into the kitchen for the kit, and she ordered him onto one of the chairs in the best light. It didn't flatter his face – swollen cheek, two black eyes, a bloody nose and busted lips, and the big gash on his forehead from a ring Tim was wearing.

"I love you, Tori," he said, which wasn't something a tuff hood from New York just spouted off. And she believed him, really – even though he only said it in private, when he was hurt or tired or vulnerable. Believed that he believed in, anyway.

"I know you do," she said, brushing it off, taking his lighter to heat up the needle to sterilize it.

"I'd marry you," he slurred. He was still drunk.

She said, "this is gonna hurt, so don't yell okay?"


End file.
